The 12-year-old killed and left in a dumpster was missing in plain sight for months before his death

Hezekiah Bernard was a 12-year-old missing in plain sight, drifting through the streets of Philadelphia for months before he was killed in unusually cruel fashion: shot in the head, his remains then thrown in a dumpster.

Friends and relatives knew Hezekiah as a loving, outgoing child who loved to dance. But he faced a number of struggles in recent years, and as his childhood unraveled, he slipped through the cracks of a weak social support system.

“He had a hard life,” said his friend Harmony Wright, 12. “But he was a good person.”

» READ MORE: The body of a 12-year-old boy was found in a dumpster in West Philadelphia, police say

His mother, Delores Davis, said Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services took him into its custody about 18 months ago because of issues in the home that she declined to share. Almost immediately, Hezekiah became a chronic “runner” — running away from every home and facility he was placed in, Davis said.

In February, DHS staff reported him missing to Philadelphia Police, according to a law enforcement source, and he was found the following month. Shortly after that, a judge ordered Hezekiah back into his mother’s care, in hopes that reuniting them would keep him from running away, she said.

But Davis said she was not given the support to navigate his worsening behavior. He stopped going to school, and was hanging with kids many years older who were pressuring him to “do bad things,” she said. Police believe he had started selling drugs in West Philadelphia with other teens. Some nights he wouldn’t come home. His mother feared for his safety, she said, and begged DHS for help that never came.

In May, Hezekiah ran away again.

Over the next four months, he floated between friends’ homes, an abandoned rowhouse, DHS facility beds, and a neighborhood organization, according to friends, family, and law enforcement. His location was never much of a secret: At least twice a week, he was at the community organization Level Up on Chestnut Street.

“If I ever wanted to find him, I came here,” his best friend, Lovier Jolly, 16, said on a recent day at Level Up.

And yet no adults in Hezekiah’s life did the same.

On Aug. 21, his short, difficult life ended: Investigators believe that a teen friend may have shot and killed him over missing drug money, according to a law enforcement source, then wrapped his body in plastic and left it in a dumpster. He’s the youngest person to be targeted in a shooting in Philadelphia this year — as gun violence affects the city’s children at a higher rate than ever before.

On Instagram, scores of people suggested 16-year-old Tysheer Hankinson had killed Hezekiah, and encouraged revenge. But before police were even able to interview him, he was shot and killed.

» READ MORE: A teen killed in West Philly was a person of interest in a 12-year-old’s murder, sources say

The case is an example of how trauma, poverty, social media, and broken support systems can intersect in ways that put young people at risk — and it illustrates the struggle to keep kids safe once they’ve been hypnotized by money and false promises of the streets.

For Bernard’s loved ones, however, the tragedy is more simple.

“He didn’t deserve this,” said Davis, 59.

Hezekiah Robert Bernard was born in Philadelphia on Nov. 9, 2010, his mother’s 14th and final child. He lived most of his life in West and Southwest Philadelphia, Davis said, and as the baby of the family, he grew up fast. By 12, he would stand 6′1, rivaling the height of his father, Robert Bernard.

Hezekiah — known by family and friends as “Hezzy” — loved to dance.

“He was little and he said to me, ‘Dad, will you love me if I dance?’” Robert Bernard recalled. “I said, go ahead, son.”

And that’s what he did: Whatever beat was playing, Hezekiah was joyfully popping his hips and moving his arms, a wide smile spread across his face.

“He was always being himself,” said Harmony Wright. “He brought us joy.”

His mother said he attended Universal Daroff Charter School and Middle Years Alternative School.

Hezekiah visited Level Up every Tuesday and Thursday alongside hundreds of other kids, where he enjoyed free homemade lunches and dinners, relaxed on the leather couches, and danced for hours, said the Rev. Aaron Campbell, the executive director. He had recently planned to join the organization’s new intensive mentorship and job training, Campbell said.

“When you looked into his eyes, you saw his hunger to see the world,” Campbell said. “He carried himself so well, he was so articulate and spoke so well to adults.”

“There are kids I work with and I wonder what they go home to at night,” he said. “But with Hezekiah, it never even crossed my mind to ask that.”

But the reality was that Hezekiah was not going home at all.

Hezekiah’s body was recovered Aug. 23 in a dumpster behind a playground at the Haddington Homes, a West Philadelphia public housing project. He had been shot once in the back of the head, then wrapped in plastic.

A Housing Authority sanitation worker found his body, and an autopsy later showed that by that point, he had been dead for 24 to 36 hours, police said.

Police struggled to identify the remains. Homicide detectives walked door-to-door through the neighborhood, passing out fliers about the “John Doe.”

They described him as “an unknown black male, 15-18 years of age, 6′1, 130 lbs.” He was wearing black shorts, a white T-shirt, and Nike sneakers. They asked anyone with information to call.

Delores Davis came across one of the fliers the day after they were handed out, and quickly feared the worst. She hadn’t heard from her son for a bit, and knew he hung out in that area. She reached out to the Medical Examiner’s Office, and using dental records, they confirmed that the body was Hezekiah’s.

Rumors circulated on social media about who was responsible, with accounts sharing a video posted by Hezekiah’s friend Tysheer Hankinson, in the days after Bernard’s death.

In the video, Hankinson, 16, panned his phone camera around what appears to be an abandoned property. He flashed stacks of money and held up a black handgun. Then, he said: “Long live my dog Hezzy.”

He posted the clip to his Instagram a few days before Hezekiah’s body was publicly identified. It set off a wave of speculation: How did Hankinson know his friend was dead before his own family did?

Various Instagram accounts posted additional, unverified information about Hankinson’s whereabouts and conversations in the days before. Dozens called for vigilante justice, and hundreds of commenters left threats and taunts on Hankinson’s page.

“When you go outside again you cooked,” one person commented under his photo.

“We know wat u did nd wen i find u ima do u the worst way on my man!” wrote another.

Before detectives could interview Hankinson, he was killed, shot multiple times at 55th and Poplar Streets just after 1 a.m. on Sept. 2.

Police are still investigating whether Hankinson was killed in retaliation for Hezekiah’s death, or by someone who may have also been involved in the murder to make sure he didn’t speak to police.

Detectives believe Hankinson and Hezekiah had been squatting in an abandoned house and selling drugs in West Philadelphia, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Money had recently come up missing, said the source, and Hezekiah may have been killed over it.

The source said investigators had more evidence linking Hankinson to the crime than just the social media video. And they have developed a second person of interest, another juvenile, who may have been present during Hezekiah’s killing. No arrests have been made.

The police source said Hankinson’s mother had feared for her son’s safety, worries that intensified after he was shot in the face in West Philadelphia earlier this year. He had stopped coming home some nights and was selling drugs, the source said.

Hankinson’s mother could not be reached. A knock on the door of her Upper Darby home went unanswered and a letter requesting comment received no reply.

Hezekiah started running away shortly after being placed in DHS care, his mother said.

Research has found that placing young people in out-of-home care is traumatic, and puts them at high risk of running away, often attempting to return to their homes, or to relatives or friends.

“He didn’t feel free,” said Lovier Jolly. And the staff at DHS, she said, didn’t keep him occupied.

When children run away, they are at greater risk of trauma, violence, victimization and substance abuse. They are vulnerable and easily influenced.

“When kids come from houses of pain, they’re already living in survival mode. When you’re growing up, you’re trying to find ways to fit in, ways to feel accepted,” said Will Little, who grew up in South Philly and now works as a life coach after serving time in prison for murder.

“You become a product of your environment. You don’t know where you’re going or who you are, you’re just a leaf in the wind, you’re doing what everybody else is doing,” he said. “They have no direction, no consequential thinking. They’re not prepared to deal with the peer pressure.”

And the DHS system, he said, does not provide children in its care enough guidance or support.

“Once they’re in the system, what’s it offering? Are they offering services to help the kids navigate and processing their emotions and lives? Or are they just warehousing them?” he said.

A spokesperson for Philadelphia DHS said she could not confirm or deny whether Hezekiah was ever in the agency’s care, citing confidentiality laws.

“We’re legally bound from commenting on this,” she said.

Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, questioned whether DHS should have taken Hezekiah from his home in the first place. Philadelphia has the highest rate of family separation in all major cities in the country, and a driver of that, he said, is the agency confusing family poverty with neglect.

Davis, Hezekiah’s mother, said that after she regained custody, she begged for support from DHS and told them she did not have the resources to keep him out of trouble and harm’s way. He had stopped going to school, and by May, the district labeled him a dropout from the sixth grade.

Davis said she asked DHS to place him in a secure facility where he couldn’t run away and would be forced to go to school. DHS told her their hands were tied, she said, and that she needed to find a way to parent him.

Wexler called this a “key failure.” DHS should have sent a specialist to Davis’ home to create a customized care plan to support his needs and mom’s concerns, he said.

“Everyone was set up for failure when they sent this boy home — which was the right thing to do — but provided no help,” he said. “Before he was sent back to mom, they should have sent a wraparound specialist out to say, ‘OK, mom, what do you need to make sure he stops running? What is the root of this? What can we do to make sure he doesn’t run?”

Returning home, he said, “was doomed from the start.”

Indeed, it was.

In May, Hezekiah ran away again. Davis was under the impression that when he was found, he would return to DHS care. She texted, emailed, and called staff to tell them Hezekiah’s whereabouts, she said, but they rarely responded.

“I begged, I cried, I pleaded and I didn’t get no kind of help,” she said. “We’d find him and tell them where he was, and they wouldn’t get him. ... They said, ‘There’s nothing we can do, we can’t hold him down.’”

She acknowledged that she had trouble managing him on her own, but felt as if she had nowhere else to turn.

Her youngest child was lost to the streets.

Hezekiah’s family and friends have remained shattered and confused in the weeks since his death. They replay TikToks videos of his dances and think about the future he could have built for himself.

“I just don’t understand,” said Peyton Hills. “He didn’t get to see his 13th birthday.”

On a recent Tuesday, loved ones gathered for a Janazah, an Islamic funeral prayer, in West Philadelphia. Shaykh Talhah spoke to the adults in the room.

“We need parents, we need elders. Where is the responsibility?” he asked. “We’re waiting until they’re 14, 15, 16, 17, before we try to grab them. But by that point, this vicious culture has already taken ahold of them.”

At Friends Southwestern Burial Ground in Upper Darby, Hezekiah’s brothers and friends helped gently lay his young, slender body into the earth. They took turns shoveling soil into the grave, some stepping away to cry, until it was filled. Robert Bernard leaned over the mound and touched the ground atop the body of his son. He said nothing, then returned to his car.

The crowd followed and drove away.

Here, forever, beneath the shade of a pine tree, Hezekiah would lie — no longer a leaf in the wind.

Staff writer Chris Palmer and Resolve Philly reporter Steve Volk contributed to this article.